This afternoon I worked on my story with the most beautiful and unexpected background music: a duet of typewriters. It turns out that two friends in the house (The Benders and Andrew Schantz, if you’re wondering) have the same model typewriter and both were willing to lend them to our little marathon novelling sessions. While I fought hard not to be distracted by the internet, Zac and Marc pecked away at their word counts, each of them typing on a Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter from the 1950s. Aidan, Anna, Arriel and Elizabeth all put in serious time working on their books the even older-fashioned way: pencil. I wish I could show you a picture.

Looking for inspiration for the steampunk elements of my novel, I was poking around for descriptions of Jules Verne’s Nautilus and found this: a page of model Nautili. I especially love the warning on this entry: although the packaging looks “real”, the manufacturer and the distributor are humourous names!